Featured Research Project (January - May 2004)

Development and Testing of a Decision Support System For River Restoration: Huron and Raisin River Watersheds, southeast Michigan

David Allan, Andrew Brenner, Gloria Helfand and Joan Nassauer

Project Overview

Water quality, biological diversity and the ecological integrity of aquatic ecosystems are often threatened by changing land-use activities. To rehabilitate and restore degraded river systems, we require a deeper understanding of the impacts of development and land management across multiple spatial scales. This interdisciplinary issue requires an interdisciplinary approach, and this project brings together the approaches of land-use planning, resource economics, aquatic ecology, and spatial analysis. The intent is to produce an integrated, interdisciplinary model that will relate existing land use to its ecological consequences for rivers, and also to provide a framework in which innovative alternative designs can be examined for their social acceptability, economic valuation, and ecological outcomes. The project's location, in southeastern Michigan, includes two watersheds. Both the Huron and Raisin Watersheds include a mix of urban land, suburban sprawl, agriculture, forested areas and wetlands. A GIS database shows the distribution of land use throughout the study areas.

Research Methods and Findings

Ecological analysis will quantify the ecological integrity of approximately 60 small tributary streams based on indicators of fish, macro invertebrates, and habitat. Sampling will be undertaken in these basins to evaluate the status of the streams. Data collected will include: (1) fish and macroinvertabrates to evaluate the Index of Biotic Integrity and the Invertebrate Community Index; (2) flow and channel morphology metrics to evaluate stream habitat and enable the calibration of testing the hydrologic model; and (3) water chemistry data to evaluate groundwater inputs and water quality.

Economic analysis will investigate the relationship between ecological integrity and the value of alternative land uses, and whether these are complementary or substitutable qualities. First a model will be developed to estimate land values for different sites in the watershed. Secondly, the changes in land values associated with different uses of the land will be determined. These changes will include factors such as the cost of installing and maintaining alternative land management practices and the change in price associated with these designs. Through this process, each alternative land use will be associated with both a price tag and its downstream ecological quality.

Social preference for alternative landscape design employs simulated digital images to evaluate the acceptability of alternative landscape designs. In order to evaluate social preference of alternative landscape designs, this project intends to test development alternatives such as the forty acre lot example (see the photo at right) that has ecosystems as amenities. Each of several alternative landscape design will be evaluated on the following criterion: (1) neatness, (2) attractiveness, (3) level of care, (4) naturalness. More detailed information on the design principles used in the survey can be found on the Landscape Ecology, Perception, and Design Lab 's home page [select Metropolitan Watersheds and Design >> Research Projects >> Design Principles.]

Results

These different approaches will be integrated into a decision support model which should provide information to assist local citizens, government decision-makers, developers, and others in examining the complex relationships between land use/cover and aquatic ecosystem health. It should also help them explore the fullest possible range of alternatives in making the decisions that determine our common future.

Investigators and Advisory Board Members

David Allan, Andrew Brenner, Gloria Helfand and Joan Nassauer (principle investigators); Paul Richards (postdoctoral associate); Mathew Diane, Dana Infante, Sandra Kosek and Tim Maull (graduate students); Vilan Hung and Diana Karwan (undergraduate students); Janis Bobrin, Dave Borneman, Vivian Brighton, Woody Kellum, Bobbi Lawrence, Steve Perry, Paul Rentschler, Denis Rice, Laura Rubin, Tom Van Wagner, Ronda Wuycheck (citizen advisory board members).

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